The Freedom Partners forum took place on Sunday night featuring Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio. The event was sponsored by a political organization backed by the Koch brothers at their annual winter retreat. The forum focused on economic issues but also delved into the topics of foreign policy.

Rand Paul is demonstrating how he could disrupt the Republican presidential field if he seeks the nomination, sparring with potential rivals over Iran, Cuba and the Pentagon’s budget in a face-to-face forum that offered an early preview of the feisty policy debate to come.

The Kentucky Republican joined fellow first-term senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida on stage Sunday evening in California for a summit organized by Freedom Partners. That group is the central hub of the powerful network of organizations backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch.

Each likely candidate has broad backing from tea party activists, who helped push them to victory over establishment-minded rivals in their most recent races. But a split is already starting to emerge even before they formally decide if they will run, and Paul seems to be an eager wedge.

“I’m a big fan of trying the diplomatic option as long as we can,” Paul said of talks with Iran over its nuclear plan. “I do think diplomacy is better than war.”

So far, I’ve been unable to find the entire video which should span about an hour. That may pop up sometime today and I’ll update the post accordingly. If you find a link with the full video, please leave in the comments.

Nate Ashworth is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Election Central. He's been blogging elections and politics for almost a decade. He started covering the 2008 Presidential Election which turned into a full-time political blog in 2012 and 2016.

10 COMMENTS

What the people of these United states must ask all the politicians that will run for President are the following questions:
1- Will you as president will do every thing in your power to prosecute George W. Bush and Obama for war crimes and violation of our Constitution, the rule of law and crimes against humanity?.
2- Will you as president will review all free trade agreements and seek agreements that promote jobs for Americans and the economic development of our foreign partners and end the exploitation of foreign nationals by US corporations?
3- Will you as president protect and defend our constitution and the rule of law and not be part of any conspiracy to overthrow any foreign government to benefit any US corporation?.
4- Will you as president will prosecute any corporation that bribe foreign governments to get control of any foreign natural resources and by doing so damage the integrity and honor of the United States?.
5- Will you as president work on a tax reform that will end the concentration of wealth in our country and promote the development of small business in every state of this union?.
6- will you as president will end the welfare system and re-store the dignity of the American people by making every American count in the making of an American that champion interdependence for prosperity?.
7- Will you as president will end the News Media monopoly and re-store the free press by prosecuting the directors, CEO and owners of a news media that force employees to manipulate and distort the truth?.
8- Will you as president will end the Federal Reserve bank and place the American economic and welfare of the American people before the greedy Bankers interest?.
9- Will you as President pass a immigration reform, secure our borders and update our immigration system to insure that all immigrants subscribe to our American system of government, our constitution, our law system and moral principles?.
10- Will you as president will make an education reform, that will make the state not the federal government the responsibility to establish a free education system and development of the man power to support the economic and welfare of the state and the citizens of that state.?
11- Will you as president promote the sovereignty of the states of this union and follow the constitution on this matter?.
12- Will you as president protect the people of these united states from the en slavery of the people of this country by debt and the exploitation of the poor by predators loan companies Bank charges that do not support the economic development of the state and nation?.
These are the main issues that will promote jobs, end poverty and promote our country economic and welfare of the people.

What a collection of platitudes and no specific ideas. Rubio speak of understanding foreign policy foreign but doesn’t give a specific idea about how to solve our problem with Terror why isn’t an ordinary citizen given an opportunity to speak specific ideas that might very well be the difference between success and failure of America? Who’s standing against the murdering of innocent children in the womb with the genocide against our pets? Who openly lifts high the name of Jesus in the quest for the most powerful office on earth? Here I am Mr. P candidate for president of the United States in 2016
My speech

I applaud your sincerity, and agree with some of it, but also find many glaring faults:

1) You come across as a religious zealot (not an advocate of the goodness
of man once man is freed from the yoke of even the slightest
dictatorial government, but instead you believe in an ultimate dictator
— God — as the only determining factor of our lives, thus removing
ALL FREE WILL (our very essence of what makes us human — the will to
fight to the death to be FREE). Mankind’s most worthy aspect is
self-determination (what distinguishes us from all other animals), and
when Man does good it must be because of that, and not from treat or
threat by an Omnipotent Being.

2) Should all unborn children and other innocents such as pets be protected from a death sentence — Yes!
But not because God threatens us to do so, but because we choose to be
good on our own merit.

3) Your choice for the greatest US
President being Abe Lincoln does not match with your professed religious
beliefs of the sanctity of life. For Lincoln’s inflammatory
lawyer-polished demagogy plunged our nation in the greatest tragedy the
American people have ever experienced — The Civil War caused more
American DEATHS than both world worlds fought against foreign enemies
COMBINED! So Lincoln, under whose presidency more than 600,000
Americans died, is your hero?!

Why isn’t Ronald Reagan the
justifiable Hero — under whose presidency no Americans died, but whose
policies brought down the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR and
the East Block Commie Nations — thus FREEING over 1/2 Billion
people!?!

4) You are correct that the Federal Reserve Board MUST
be shut down — for they print nothing but phoney money. e.i.
Promissory Notes backed by NOTHING OF VALUE, not Real US Dollars backed
by Gold or Silver as the ONLY legal tender allowed by the US
Constitution to be issued ONLY by the US Treasury (an example of real
money $1 US paper dollar = the following GUARANTEE by the US Government
as printed on Real Paper Money: “THIS CERTIFICATE STATES THAT THERE HAS
BEEN DEPOSITED IN THE TREASURY OF THE ….UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA….ONE SILVER DOLLAR….Payable to the Bearer on demand” —
meaning if you didn’t care for that paper dollar, you went to a bank and
they MUST give you a genuine US Silver Dollar Coin in exchange!http://96.0.143.31/catalogues/011412/images/16_1.jpg

Here
is a Federal Reserve Note in contrast, that CLAIMS to be a US Dollar
— lacks any features that guarantee the Bearer any actual worth —
only imitates the Original US Dollar by counterfeiting the design, and
allowing for nothing of REAL VALUE, just a Promissory Note to be trusted
by the American people by the “promises” of politicians that allow its
printing:

Your
major mistake is wanting to “fix” the US dollar to market speculations
of an ounce of gold vs a near worthless FLUCTUATING Federal Reserve Fiat
Dollar (minute 6:20 and on in your video) — which is utter nonsense.

The Original US States of America had marked the EXACT value of
Silver and Gold by the edict that the US Treasury must coin $1 US
Silver Dollars of the actual silver weight (ASW) of .7736 troy ounces,
and $20 gold coins content of 0.9675 troy oz. To simplify let’s make $1
=1 oz Silver and $20 = 1 oz gold.
The
common mistake made by people who do not understand that gold and
silver are of a FINITE and FIXED Quantity — all mined and accumulated
over the centuries gold can fit in a couple of Olympic size swimming
pools, thus has UNCHANGEABLE intrinsic worth, unlike paper, that can be
made from ever growing trees for ever. Therefore, Gold is an immutable
standard — by which
currencies are measured how true or fake their perceived value is. In
simple words: $1300 per once of gold does not mean that gold is
expensive — but that $1300 is near worthless paper that tries to pick
up 1 once of Gold!

5) You ask for low 8% credit charges — when
the Roman Empire was in financial trouble and needed to pay their army
to protect them, the wealthy Jews gave the Emperor the needed loan at 3%
interest. Afterward, the Romans were so enraged by this usury that they
burned the Jewish quarters — the max interest being 2%!
Being a religious man, shouldn’t you recognize the sin of usury…and ask for 1%…which will be nearly non-usury…?

6) On prisoners — pretty good. Abolish all Private Prisons, make violent repeaters to never see daylight — spot on!

7) Abolish the IRS — spot on! 10% flat tax — why should anyone be
compelled by the Gov to part with ANY of their hard earned monies under
duress?! Make contributions voluntary instead — if we work for a
leaving, so should the Gov, and anything we give them extra will be a
bonus!

8) On Obamacare — abolish it, but your substitute plan is not much better.

9) Wrong on illegal aliens — they’ve broken to law by invading our
nation illegally, so ALL must be deported. There is no need for more
immigrants, or nation is getting overpopulated as it is. Allow annual
work visas for migrant workers — and nothing else.

10) From minute 15 you go off on a One World Government movement…? Unclear, since you make little sense till minute 16.

11) Home Mortgages — correct (covers usury in point #5).

12) On your: Military force only to overwhelmingly remove the threat in 1
year — nonsense, nothing short of nukes can eliminate an enemy.
History is abundant in this lesson. The Brits could never conquer
Afghanistan in the 19th century, nor did we with all our superior
military might in the 20th and 21st century. Unless you are willing to
Salt the Earth (nukes today) as the Romans did to Carthage!

13) Bounty on terrorist — it works much better than drones. So you got that one right.

14) “Our military will be given the best and the latest even more” —
since we already spend more than the top 11 nations in the world
combined on the Pentagon, where will this extra money come from? Utter
nonsense since we no longer have a Super Power to defend against —
just a bunch of flee-beaten, turban-wearing No-Mechanized Army,
No-Airforce, No-Navy crazy Muslims, that can never launch a naval
assault on our beaches as we did in Normandy!
The
solution to our economic woes is to cut the Pentagon spending by 90%
(while keeping all our nukes, just in case) — and stop all these
Muslims from coming here
by simply rejecting their entry into USA
— you come from an Arab nation with an Arab passport, SORRY, gotta go
back, we don’t won’t you here!

15) You state that both the GOP and Dems are evil (not far from the truth) and THEN ask for MONEY for your goldmoney.party…?

The Rubio,
Cruz, and Paul routine was very reminiscent
of a Moe, Curley and Larry show.

It is simply not true that more than 43 percent of U.S.
households pay no taxes, or even no federal taxes. While many may not pay
federal income tax this year, 29 percent of the oft quoted “43’ will pay Social
Security and Medicare taxes. They do indeed, as the phrase goes, have skin in
the game. The 14 percent left that do
not pay taxes are the elderly, disabled, and yes, the totally unemployed. (From:
Forbes)

All three Senators, Cruz, Rubio, and Paul, voted for the tax extenders bill which includes a slew of special-interest giveaways. There’s a $71 million tax break to help racecar track-builders; a $336 million excise tax on rum imported to the U.S. from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands that goes to help their rum industries; and a $27 million film production credit for movie studios that make their films in the U.S. The legislation also benefits some of the biggest multinational corporations and individuals. It continues what’s known as the “active financing” exemption, which lets Wall Street firms and multinationals defer taxes on financial activities conducted overseas, to the tune of $10.4 billion over two years. Its biggest giveaway to individuals is a $6.5 billion deduction for state and local sales taxes that disproportionately benefits high-income taxpayers. Tax credits go to railroads for maintaining their tracks to make them safe — worth about $160 million per year. And these
listing are just a drop in the bucket.

Last year alone, corporate tax breaks and loopholes added up to $150 billion in lost revenue for the U.S. Treasury. That would be a nice payment on the National debt.

Why should taxpayers, rich and poor, have to pay private businesses for their costs of doing business?

Dissecting this 9 minute video (which only shows a small part of the discussion, so may not be representative of the full interview):

1) Rubio states that now we have more dangerous military foreign enemies than 25 years ago — making a fool of himself (since the extremist muslims have no military power whatsoever, unlike the Soviet Union that could have wiped us off)!

2) Rand Paul counters Rubio’s idiocy by stating that war should be our last resort!!!